Tell me, sire, you who know every thing, tell me, know you now whether I love you ?" "Yes, yes, you love me," cried Henry, to whom this strange and joyous surprise had imparted youthful vivacity and warmth.

"Yes, Kate, you love me; and if I may trust your dear confession, I am your first love.
Repeat it yet again; you were nothing but a daughter to Lord Neville ?" "Nothing more, sire!" "And after him have you had no love ?" "None, sire!" "And can it be that so happy a marvel has come to pass?
and that I have made, not a widow, but a young maiden, my queen ?" As he now gazed at her with warm, passionate, tender looks, Catharine cast down her eyes, and a deep blush covered her sweet face.
"Ah, a woman's bashful blushes, what an exquisite sight!" cried the king, and while he wildly pressed Catharine to his bosom, he continued: "Oh, are we not foolish and short-sighted men, all of us, yes, even we kings?
In order that I might not be, perhaps, forced to send my sixth wife also to the scaffold, I chose, in trembling dread of the deceitfulness of your sex, a widow for my queen, and this widow with a blessed confession, mocks at the new law of the wise Parliament, and makes good to me what she never promised." [Footnote: After Catharine Howard's infidelity and incontinency had been proved, and she had atoned for them by her death, Parliament enacted a law "that if the king or his successors should intend to marry any woman whom they took to be a clean and pure maid--if she, not being so, did not declare the same to the king, it should be high treason: and all who knew it; and did not reveal it, were guilty of misprision of treason."-- "Burnet's History of the Reformation of the Church of England." London, 1681 (vol.i, p.

313)] "Come, Kate, give me a kiss.

You have opened before me to-day a happy, blissful future, and prepared for me a great and unexpected pleasure.
I thank you for it, Kate, and the Mother of God be my witness, I will never forget it." And drawing a rich diamond ring from his own finger, and putting it upon Catharine's, he continued: "Be this ring a remembrancer of this hour, and when you hereafter present it to me, with a request, I will grant that request, Kate!" He kissed her forehead, and was about to press her more closely in his arms, when suddenly from without was heard the dull roll of drums, and the ringing of bells.
The king started a moment and released Catharine from his arms.

He listened; the roll of drums continued, and now and then was heard in the distance, that peculiar thundering and yet sullen sound, which so much resembles the roar and rush of the sea, and which can be produced only by a large and excited mob.
The king, with a fierce curse, pushed open the glass door leading to the balcony, and walked out.
Catharine gazed after him with a strange, half-timid, half-scornful look.